Is the world growing worse or better? - Internet Archive...Deceit, dishonesty, hypocrisy, white lies and black lies, slander, vanity, os- 5 6 Is the World Growing tentation, arrogance,

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Is the World Growing

Worse or Better?

By

Rev. Wm. McKinley, D. D.

CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM

NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS

A'*

JENNINGS

%

• •

©CI.A293911

IS THE WORLD GROWING WORSE

OR BETTER?

IS THE WORLD GROWING WORSE

OR BETTER?

tHIS question is not merely specu

lative, but vital and practical.

Our answer to it will determine

largely our attitude toward the world and

our conduct in it.

At first sight the world seems to be

growing worse. Evil is obtrusive and,

while it seeks secrecy, finds publicity.

A single crime will give a man more no¬

toriety than a whole lifetime of virtue.

Our evil deeds and misdeeds are published

here, but much of the good we do is re¬

corded in heaven only. And there is

evil enough in sight to alarm us.

Ignorance, error, falsehood, illusions,

and delusions innumerable darken our

minds and bewilder our reason.

Deceit, dishonesty, hypocrisy, white

lies and black lies, slander, vanity, os-

5

6 Is the World Growing

tentation, arrogance, intemperance, sensu¬

ality, profanity, infidelity, and selfishness

with all its vulgar vices corrupt and de¬

grade society. Political corruption, brib¬

ery, perjury, personal and partisan poli¬

tics in place of patriotism, mean and mer¬

cenary appeals to what is base, the unholy

alliance of law-makers and law-breakers,

the increase of crime, and the decrease of

justice shake our faith in democracy and

self-government. The extremes of pov¬

erty and wealth, want on one side, luxury

on the other, create contrasts which beget

envy, jealousy, strife, the war of classes

and masses with all its cruelties and

crimes. In the realm of religion, bigotry,

fanaticism, formalism, pharisaism, worldli¬

ness, zeal without knowledge and knowl¬

edge without zeal, divide and distract

the spiritual forces which united might

conquer the world for Christ. It must

be confessed there is a dark side to our

question and facts enough on which a

partial philosophy may build a doctrine

of despair. But these are not all the facts

nor the larger part of them.

In human affairs, as in nature, we have

Worse or Better? 7

day and night, summer and winter,

growth and decay, life and death, and

these opposites make one great whole

which, rightly interpreted, inspires hope

and not despair. Through all the changes

in nature we see a general tendency to¬

ward improvement and progress. Through

all the ages in which the primeval fire mist

was cooling and condensing into suns and

planets, through the long and later era

when the continents rose slowly from

the seas, through the numberless years

in which vast vegetable growths absorbed

the poisonous gases from the murky air

and formed the coal measures with which

we now warm and light our homes, through

the unmeasured time in which huge and

uncouth forms of animal life crawled

over the morasses and roamed through the

wildernesses of the early world—through

all these countless changes one great

purpose pervades and controls them all.

The universe is slowly emerging from

chaos into cosmos, and our plastic planet

is becoming fitted for the abode of man.

And since man came, the Power that

prepared the world for him has been


working in and through him to make it

a better world.

Whether a perfect world and perfect

man could have been made at once is a

question beyond the reach of our facul¬

ties; but we know that it is not the method

of nature nor of the God manifested in

nature. Man is fitted to his environment

and his environment to him, and

both are imperfect, but slowly advancing

toward perfection. Many things called

evil rightly used become relatively good.

Our pains, perils, and privations met and

conquered are things by which we are

educated, disciplined, and developed up

and out of animalism and sensuality into

manhood and spirituality. All our vir¬

tues are born of our needs. Our wants

create our industries, arts, sciences, phi¬

losophies, literature, religion, and civiliza¬

tion; and in a deep sense it is true of all

men, as it was of the greatest Man, that

we are “made perfect through suffering.”

The same law of progress is manifest

in natural history and in human history.

Here, as there, progress is not in constant

ratios or straight lines, but with action

Worse or Better? 9

and reaction, fluctuation and variation.

Cities, States, nations, kingdoms, rise

and fall; all human institutions, social,

civil, political, and religious, have their

periods of growth and decay, of progres¬

sion and retrogression. On all the glory

of earth there is no defense. All things

that belong to time are mutable and

mortal. In the human, as in the natural

world, there are storms and catastrophes

which threaten to destroy all things.

Gigantic crimes, cruel wars, tragic revo¬

lutions, shock and shake the nations.

Families, tribes, races, dynasties, pass

and perish; but humanity survives and

prospers and marches on toward larger

light and loftier destinies.

All the great changes in human history

have, on the whole, been changes for the

better. The Assyrian and Babylonian

monarchies were better than the isolated,

warring clans that precede them. The

Persian Empire was an improvement on

Assyria and Babylon. The Macedonian

Empire was better still, spreading Greek

culture and civilization over the semi-

barbarous populatons of Asia. The Ro-

io Is the World Growing

man dominion, greatest of all, was the

best of all.

The Roman at his best was the best

type of manhood, except the best Hebrew,

the world had yet seen, heroic, patriotic,

capable of self-sacrifice and, after his

fashion, virtuous and religious. To him

we owe the reign of law instead of brute

force. It was the Roman who said:

“There is a law which men have not made

and can not unmake. It is not one thing

in Rome and another in Athens, one thing

to-day and another to-morrow; but in

Rome and Athens, here and there and

everywhere and evermore it is the same,

because God its Author is everywhere and

evermore the same.”

It was under Roman rule the idea of

human brotherhood first emerged. It

was a Roman who said, “I am a man

and nothing human is alien to me.”

Rome brought the conquered nations to¬

gether in one great commonwealth, and

so made possible universal peace and the

gates of the temple of Janus were shut

when the Prince of Peace was born.

The master minds, the empire builders,

Worse or Better? u

build better than they know. Inspired

by their own ambitions, they unconsciously

execute the purposes of a will greater

and wiser than their own. Nebuchad¬

nezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, and Caesar were

preparing the way of the Lord when they

thought and sought only to prepare their

own way.

The great races, Hebrew, Greek, and Ro¬

man, as nations, have passed, but all that

was best in them abides.

The religion of the Hebrew, the cul¬

ture of the Greek, the law of the Roman,

are the foundation stones of modern

civilization. The survival of the fittest

and the conservation of force are laws of

the spiritual as well as of the natural

world. The destruction of Jerusalem

seemed to the early Christians a catas¬

trophe for which there was no compensa¬

tion; but it liberated Christianity from

bondage to Judaism and made it a cos¬

mopolitan and not a provincial religion.

When Roman valor and virtue died

in the lap of luxury and licentiousness,

the barbarians overran the empire and

swept away the material splendors and


moral rottenness of that gorgeous pagan¬

ism, and so made room for a higher civil¬

ization in which Christ, and not Caesar,

should be supreme.

When the French Revolution burst

all bounds, closed the churches, banished

the priests, beheaded the king, and en¬

gulfed Church and State in common ruin,

it seemed that God had abandoned the

world to atheism and anarchy. But we

see now that the things thus destroyed were

evil and corrupt things for which neither

God nor man had any more use. There

are times when enormous evils call for

enormous remedies, when men must fight

the devil with fire.

“The French Revolution,” as Carlyle

says, “was a God’s gospel clad in hell-

fire,” and came because hell-fire was needed

to consume the intolerable abuses and

abominations which had made France a

Gehenna gorged with centuries of crime

and corruption. It struck down princes

and raised up the people. Every poor

man’s head is safer since the royal heads

of Charles the Second and Louis the Six¬

teenth fell beneath the executioner’s ax.

Worse or Better? i3

Cromwell, Mirabeau, and Dan ton, regi¬

cides and revolutionists, had their rough

work to do for the world’s welfare. God

is not so choice of His instruments as our

fastidious fancies would have Him. He

permits the wild gusts of human passions

to rage and roar as if they would blow our

planet out of its orbit; but He rides upon

the storm and controls its course and

makes “fire and hail, stormy wind, and

dragons of the deep fulfill His word.”

“Surely the wrath of man shall praise

Thee and the remainder of wrath shalt

Thou restrain.”

From the highest point of view right

is might and the just cause ultimately

conquers. Nothing really dies that ought

to live, and nothing lives long that ought

to die. The witnesses for the truth may

be burned at the stake, beheaded on the

scaffold, or nailed to the cross, but the truth

can not be burned, beheaded, or cruci¬

fied. A lie on the throne is a lie still,

and truth in a dungeon is truth still,

and the lie on the throne is on the way to

defeat, and the truth in the dungeon is

on the way to victory. No accident of


position can change the essential nature

of things or the eternal laws which de¬

termine their destinies.

As in nature material atoms and ener¬

gies disappear only to reappear in other

forms and combinations, so in the spiritual

world the old truth passes into new forms

of expression to meet new needs and new

conditions; and those who mistake the

form for the essence may think the truth

is lost and the new statement of it false

and dangerous. But living truth, like

all other living things, must adjust itself

to new conditions or become a dead for¬

mula. The power of the gospel to adapt

itself to the changes in human thought

and in the social and spiritual conditions

of men is proof of its vitality and di¬

vinity.

When evolution was announced as the

scientific theory of the process by which

the universe has come to be what it is, it

was assailed as an atheistic attempt to

get rid of God.

But no process can account for itself.

In it or behind it must be some Power

adequate to produce it. This Power be-

Worse or Better? i5

hind evolution must be self-existent, self-

sufficient, and all-sufficient, and what is

this but another name for the Eternal,

Almighty, All-wise God, in and over all

things, immanent and transcendant, “God

over all and blessed for evermore.”

This is the sane, scientific, rational view

of evolution harmonizing with common-

sense, religion and logic, and with the

deep, enduring, and universal intuitions of

the wisest and best of mankind. A godless

universe is an absurdity. Evolution de¬

mands an adequate cause as much as im¬

mediate creation; and by whatever proc¬

ess He works, God is a necessity of our

reason and our faith from which we can

not escape without intellectual and spirit¬

ual suicide.

Without claiming for it absolute dem¬

onstration, we find in evolution a theory

which sheds light on things otherwise

dark and a conception of the universe

and of God which does not diminish but

increases their greatness and glory. As

gravitation shows us that nothing is iso¬

lated in space, that one law holds the

mountains on their bases, the oceans in


their beds, the planets in their orbits,

rounds the falling raindrops and the

rolling worlds and, stretching from atom

to atom and from world to world, holds

all things together in the unity and beauty

and beneficence of the great cosmos; so

evolution shows us that nothing is iso¬

lated in time, that through all the ages

all things are related and correlated, all

creatures akin and bound together in

the unity of the Infinite Life which trans¬

cends and includes them all. From this

point of view the Fatherhood of God

and the brotherhood of man is a truth

of science as well as of religion. By en¬

larging our conception of the universe

science has enlarged our conception of

God.

The Sovereign whose empire includes

millions of suns and systems, some of

which are so vast that our earth is but

an atom in comparison and so remote

that light, with a velocity of one hundred

and eighty thousand miles a second,

takes thousands of years to traverse the

immensity of space between us and them

—this God of all worlds in boundless

Worse or Better? 17

space and time is a greater God than the

provincial Deity of Palestine.

As science has enlarged our ideas of

God’s works, so scholarship has enlarged

our views of God’s revelation. The proc¬

ess by which the Holy Scriptures have

come to us is analogous to that by which

the physical world has come to be what

it is. Not by immediate fiat, but by

progressive development, “line upon line

and precept upon precept,” the inspired

Word has come to us in accordance with

spiritual laws as fixed and sure in their

operation as the laws which govern the

material world. And with increasing

knowledge of these laws we have a better

understanding of the Book which reveals

them. As the Copernican view of the

universe makes it more intelligible and

more interesting than the Ptolemaic view,

so our modern doctrine of inspiration and

revelation makes the Bible more in¬

teresting and more instructive than the

mechanical theory of verbal inerrancy

which made God responsible for all the

inaccuracies and infelicities of style and

detail which the human element in the

i8 Is the World Growing

Book made inevitable. The criticism

which many feared as fatal to faith has

clarified, strengthened, and enlarged it.

The Bible has become a bigger and better

Book. Because it is more human it is

not less divine, but more divine because

more human. Like the Supreme Person

whom it portrays, “the Word is made

flesh and dwells among us full of grace

and truth.”

Our enlarged knowledge of God’s world

and God’s Word has necessarily modi¬

fied our views of many other things. Our

ideas of incarnation, atonement, regenera¬

tion, justification, sanctification, and kin¬

dred truths illumined by larger light have

become more reasonable and more cred¬

ible. There is mystery enough left to

require faith and reverence, but the con¬

flict between reason and revelation has

almost vanished and promises, with more

light, entirely to disappear. The gospel

appeals to our heads as well as to our

hearts, to our reason as well as to our

faith; it is the wisdom of God as well as

the power of God; and all honest efforts

to remove the irrational and irrelevant

Worse or Better? 19

accretions which have gathered about it

are to be welcomed as helps to its propa¬

gation.

In its long voyage across the sea of

time, it is not strange that the gospel

ship had accumulated some barnacles,

and the scholars and critics who have

helped us to scrape them off are friends

to whom we owe our thanks and not

anathemas. The ship will sail better

and reach port sooner because of this

good work.

From these general views let us pass

now to particulars.

First: The world is making material

progress, is growing in wealth. This may

not seem real progress to those who think

that poverty promotes virtue. But this

is not true. Men may be virtuous in

poverty, but not because of it. Poverty

may keep us from the evils of idleness

and luxury to which great wealth tempts

its possessors.

But the poverty which compels multi¬

tudes to exhaust their strength in toil

for the bare necessities of life dulls and

dwarfs the mind and unfits it for those


exercises which expand and elevate it.

Men need leisure and freedom from toil

and care in order to read and think and

learn the truths which promote their

material and moral well-being; and this

they can not have without at least a mod¬

erate amount of wealth, and it is cause

for rejoicing that the wealth of the world

is increasing so rapidly, and that more

has been added to it in the last century

than in any five preceding centuries.

It is true that the world’s wealth is not

yet well distributed and is concentrated

too much in comparatively few hands.

But it must be created before it can be

distributed, and the intelligence and energy

which have produced it will find some

way rightly to distribute it, so that every

man may get his proper share. The laws

of nature and of human nature are demo¬

cratic and unfriendly to monopolies, and

slowly and surely are operating to equalize

social conditions.

Second: The world is improving in

health.

Science is showing us the laws of life,

the causes of disease and the remedies.

Worse or Better? 21

Many of the worst diseases, formerly fatal to multitudes and regarded as incurable, have been brought under control and are on the way to extinction.

The plagues and pestilences which swept away millions, and depopulated cities and countries, have been banished from civilized nations. Ignorance, error, su¬ perstition and vice, causes of the worst diseases, are vanishing as the light of science and religion illumines the world. The average length of human life has been increased from fifty to a hundred per cent within a century; and this improve¬ ment in health helps all other kinds of improvement.

As we become better acquainted with the laws of physiology and psychology, we learn that many mental and moral maladies have their roots in bad physical conditions, and call for sanitation and surgery more than for prisons and penal¬ ties. As our treatment of criminals and insane people becomes more scientific, it also becomes more humane, more Chris¬ tian, and more successful. Much that has been called depravity is disease, to


cure which science and religion must com¬

bine and are combining with results which

justify and sanctify their co-operation.

Third: The world is growing wiser.

The time predicted when “many shall

run to and fro and knowledge be increased’*

has come. All the sciences are advancing

faster than any mind can keep pace with

them. We have learned more about the

universe and its laws in the last hundred

years than in all preceding time, and dis¬

covery is going on in all directions with

increasing rapidity.

Schools of all sorts, libraries and lab¬

oratories and facilities of every kind, for

investigation and instruction, are multi¬

plying beyond all precedent and bringing

to light the secrets of nature and the laws

of mind and matter which, known and

obeyed, make men wise to rule themselves

and the world they inhabit.

This progress of science is made pos¬

sible by our great wealth of which it is

both cause and effect, and it is one of the

good signs of our times that rich men are

giving so much of their wealth for the

education and enlightenment of mankind.

Worse or Better? 23

Fourth: The world is growing better

morally and religiously.

No candid student of history can care¬

fully compare the present with the past

and doubt this.

A century ago, in our own country, the

best of all countries, slavery, duelling,

gambling, and intemperance flourished

unabashed and almost unrebuked. In Puri¬

tan New England, at ministerial ordina¬

tions, church dedications, and religious

conventions much of the expense was for

strong drink, and it was not an uncommon

thing for deacons and doctors of divinity

to imbibe more than they could well

manage. Jonathan Edwards was dis¬

missed from his parish of Northampton

for rebuking immoralities which no Church

would now tolerate. John Wesley was

virtually banished from Oxford Univer¬

sity because he denounced the vice and

ungodliness openly practiced there by

candidates for the ministry in the An¬

glican Church. Three years ago nearly

the same university conferred its highest

honors on General Booth of the Salvation

Army, for doing what Wesley did without


Wesley’s learning and logic, but none the

less effectively on that account. An Eng¬

lish statesman of Wesley’s time, hearing

a preacher say that, “If noblemen and

gentlemen did not repent of their sins

they would go to hell as surely as plain

plebeians for their vulgar vices,” indig¬

nantly exclaimed, “How dare he preach

a religion that interferes with the private

lives of gentlemen!”

Slavery and duelling are now dead,

gambling is outlawed, intemperance is

unfashionable, and over half of our country

the traffic in intoxicating drinks is pro¬

hibited by law. Religion has become

more practical; we have less theology and

more religion. Less is said about the plan

of salvation and the mysteries of the future

life, and more is done to save men’s souls

and bodies from the evils of the present life.

In dealing with crime and criminals and

all sorts of unfortunate people, science,

common-sense, and religion are working

together in ways that are more merciful

and more helpful. We are learning that

the true aim of law is not so much to pun¬

ish crime as to prevent it.

Worse or Better? 25

When John Howard began his work

of prison reform, the prisons were crowded

with persons guilty of no crime but ina¬

bility to pay their debts. No one then

seems to have thought of the stupidity,

not to say cruelty, of such law. If a man

could not pay his debts out of prison,

how, in the name of common-sense, could

he ever pay them in prison? At the same

time prisons were pesthouses, foul and

filthy and fatal to the lives of their un¬

fortunate inmates; and no man seems to

have cared for their souls or bodies till

John Howard, John Wesley, Silas Told,

Elizabeth Fry, and others like them, be¬

gan to see and feel that the way to fol¬

low Christ is to visit the sick and the poor

and the prisoners, to relieve their wants

and woes, and help them up and out of

their sins and miseries.

The revival of religion in the eighteenth

century gave birth to modern philan¬

thropy and humanitarianism.

It preached and practiced justice and

mercy to man as well as faith and obedi¬

ence to God; and the altruism of Him

“who came not to be ministered unto but


to minister,” has since then been growing

in his Church and in the world, and is

the chief characteristic of present-day

Christianity.

The traditional ecclesiasticism which

preceded it had no eye to pity and no

arm to save. The crimes and cruelties

and miseries of men evoked no compas¬

sion and got no help from a religion which

lived by the letter which killeth and not

in the spirit which giveth life; but when

men born of the Spirit had the love of

God shed abroad in their hearts, they be¬

gan to love their neighbors as themselves

and went about doing good like their

Master.

Before this revival there were more

than a hundred offenses for which men

were hung, and they were hung without

pity and followed to the gallows by an

inhuman rabble to whom the cruel spec¬

tacle was a sort of holiday entertainment.

Press gangs dragged innocent men into

the army, and beat them brutally if they

resisted. For minor offenses, for which

small fines only are now amerced, men and

women were tied to a cart’s tail and

Worse or Better? 2 7

stripped and whipped through the streets

like dogs. Indeed, dogs and dumb beasts

generally are better treated now than

many unfortunate human beings were

then. Dog fighting, cock fighting, bull

baiting, and the brutalities of pugilism

were the popular amusements of the times.

And these were the good old times when

men were brave and women fair and mod¬

ern degeneracy had not begun. “Say

not thou, Why were the former times bet¬

ter than these? for, concerning this, thou

inquirest not wisely.”

The enthusiasm of humanity is now

making men merciful to one another, and

even to the beasts that perish. Fraternal

orders and organizations are multiplied

to redress all wrongs and relieve all suf¬

fering. Hospitals and asylums for or¬

phans, for the aged, the blind, the deaf,

the dumb, the insane, the defective and

diseased in mind and body, are endowed

and supported with an amount of charity

never seen on earth before. Any great

calamity by fire, flood, famine, pestilence,

or earthquake evokes universal sympathy

and succor. The earthquake in Italy a


year ago brought to its victims help from

all countries; even battleships and their

crews were sent there on this errand of

mercy, the first time in history they were

used to save and not destroy, and the

best use ever made of them.

The brotherhood of man is a fact con¬

fessed and confirmed by the consecration

of thousands of men and women to lives

of service and sacrifice for those whose

only claim upon them is their need. The

obligation of the rich to the poor, of the

strong to the weak, of the educated to the

ignorant, of the good to the bad, is a tru¬

ism which no one now dares to deny.

The war spirit is dying and the spirit

of fraternity growing in all lands. Sec¬

tarian controversies have almost disap¬

peared in the Churches. Co-operation

and federation in Christian work at home

and abroad is taking the place of the

suicidal strife and waste of the past.

This spirit of unity is in the world as

well as in the Church. It has brought

the discordant States of Germany to¬

gether in one great empire. It has made

the weak, divided States of Italy into one

Worse or Better? 29

powerful kingdom. It has made the jeal¬

ous, quarreling States of America one

great Republic; and promises to make all

nations one great Commonwealth—“the

Federation of Man, the Parliament of the

World.”

The great missionary movement of our

time is one effect of this growth of human

fraternity.

For the first half century of foreign

missions they were barely tolerated by

Christian governments and half of the

Church questioned their utility.

Not till Stanley found Livingstone in

the heart of Africa and was converted by

him, did the secular press begin to treat

missionaries and their work fairly and

respectfully.

Now scholars, scientists, statesmen, the

rulers of nations, men who control the

commerce and business of the world,

are beginning to honor them as the ad¬

vance agents of civilization as well as of

Christianity. And their reflex influence

on the Churches at home is not the least

of the benefits they have bestowed.

The Laymen’s Missionary Movement


shows that even in this time, when the

commercial spirit is said to be so strong,

men with vast business interests to care

for are able and willing to give time and

money and work without stint for the love

of God and man, to evangelize the world

in this generation.

The Students’ Volunteer Movement has

led thousands of the brightest and best

minds among our educated young people

to go to the front to serve and suffer and,

if need be, die for the gospel; and thousands

more in our schools and colleges are wait¬

ing to be sent on the same great errand.

The heroic spirit in the Church is neither

dead nor dying. The recent Boxer mas¬

sacres in China made manifest the fact

that our missionaries and their converts

have as much of the martyr spirit which

makes men faithful unto death as any

of the saints of past ages. And this hero¬

ism has given them success. The miracle

of Pentecost has been repeated in modern

missions in as marked a manner as in

any of the instances recorded in the Acts

of the Apostles. And not only in foreign

fields but in the worst slums of our great

Worse or Better? 3i

cities, men as far from God and goodness

as the most depraved pagans are miracu¬

lously transformed into good men and

good citizens by the same grace which

made the gospel mighty at the first, and

will make it mighty to the last.

The millennium is not yet; evils enough

are in sight to make pessimism plausible

to those who see the evils only. In the

Church, in society, in politics there is

need of a revival of righteousness to cure

the worldliness in the Church, the selfish¬

ness in society, and the crookedness in

politics. Evil dies hard and will not be

exorcised by rose water theories of evo¬

lution and progress. Human life never

was and never will be a play, but a battle

to be won only by valor and vigilance.

This is a time when the energies of men

for evil as well as for good are aroused

to unwonted activity. The strenuous

spirit of the age shows itself in the forces

that corrupt as well as in those that re¬

form society.

The same sun that warms the air,

beautifies the earth, makes flowers bloom,

birds sing, and the harvests grow, also


makes frogs croak, mosquitoes sting, brings

snakes out of their holes, and makes ma¬

laria exhale from swamps and decaying

vegetation. The intense activity of this

stirring time animates the sons of Belial

as well as the sons of God; and makes the

impression on those who see only the sur¬

face that the armies of evil are advancing

to victory. But, however strong and

arrogant it may appear, wickedness is

weakness. “I have seen the wicked in

great power and spreading himself like a

green bay tree, yet he passed away and

lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he

could not be found.”

“Right is might since God is right, And right the day must win,

To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.”

Much of our present spiritual apathy and

inertia is due to conditions which are

already beginning to change for the better.

As a nation, we have had on our hands

a tremendous task which has taken all

our strength. To subdue the titanic

forces of nature, to fell the forests, plough

Worse or Better? 33

the prairies, drain the swamps, irrigate

the deserts, open the mines, tunnel the

mountains, bridge the rivers, build the

cities, and bind together with steel high¬

ways all parts of this vast country and

make homes here for a hundred millions

of people, has taken a hundred years

of hard work by the most energetic and

industrious race of men. If it has ab¬

sorbed our thought and energy and de¬

veloped our secularity more than our

spirituality, this was inevitable. But this

work had to be done. Our physical wants

are imperative; we must provide for our

bodies in order to save our souls. But

this preparatory work is largely completed,

and the energy and intelligence expended

in it can now be used in the greater work

of conquering ourselves and the world for

Christ. Having transformed a vast con¬

tinental wilderness into a garden of gods,

we can now build here the city of God

and make America the spiritual metropo¬

lis of Christendom, the chief base of the

armies of light which are to evangelize

the world.

For this we have been providentially

3


educated and prepared as no other nation

has been. With all our worldliness, we

are a Christian nation, the most Christian

nation.

In proportion to our population, we

have more professed Christians than any

other nation, and they are increasing

numerically faster than our population,

rapidly as it has grown.

We give more money, send more mis¬

sionaries, and convert more heathen than

any other nation, and we have only begun

this great work. What we have already

accomplished is presage and prophecy

of what we may expect to do.

The energy and intelligence which have

made us so rich and powerful, consecrated

to Christ, will fit us for this great work,

and the other great nations will join us

in it. The great powers, Great Britain,

Germany, and the United States, are Chris¬

tian, Protestant, and missionary nations,

doing most of the missionary work in the

world. The twentieth century promises

to be the century of peace, when the enor¬

mous expenses for armies and navies, no

longer needed, will be used for the better-

Worse or Better? 35

merit of the people at home and for the

conversion of the nations abroad. The

universal reign of the Prince of Peace is

the logical and legitimate outcome of the

moral and spiritual progress of mankind.

The great forces which control society

are becoming Christianized. The scoffing

skepticism of the eighteenth century has

no followers. Since Bradlaugh died in

England, and Ingersoll in America, un¬

belief has had no tongue or pen potent

enough to attract attention. The great

minds of the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries are men of faith. The histo¬

rians, Greene, Lecky, Bancroft, and Mot¬

ley; the poets, Tennyson, Browning, Long¬

fellow, Bryant, and Whittier; the scientists,

Faraday, Agassiz, Pasteur, Lord Kelvin,

and Sir Oliver Lodge; the novelists, Sir

Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Victor

Hugo, Nathaniel Hawthorne; the states¬

men, Gladstone, Bismarck, Lincoln, Theo¬

dore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan;

the rulers of the great nations, the King

of Great Britain, the Emperor of Germany,

the President of the United States—all

the men that influence the world most have


been or are nominally or really Chris¬

tian.

The spirit of social service which is as¬

serting its supremacy everywhere is the

Christian spirit which finds its greatest

example in the cross of Christ.

Jesus is the central figure in human his¬

tory and the greatest power on earth to¬

day. He alone is able to project Himself

across the ages and be the contemporary

of all generations.

The greatest man before him was Julius

Caesar, whose name and fame then filled

the world.

No secular historian mentions Jesus till

fifty years after His death, when Tacitus

gives Him a few half-contemptuous lines.

Nineteen centuries later Caesar is almost

forgotten, and another emperor seeks to

revive interest in him.

With the help of the best scholars in

France, the Second Napoleon publishes a

life of Caesar and, with all the prestige of

its great subject and great author, it falls

flat from the press; in all my travels I

have seen only one copy of it. But the life

of Jesus is found and read everywhere.

Worse or Better? 37

More books are written about Him than

about all the Caesars and all the con¬

querors of all time. When the new version

of the New Testament was printed in

England, one of our great newspapers had

it cabled across the ocean, at great ex¬

pense, and published in a mammoth edi¬

tion read by millions of people. The

first steamship that crossed the Atlantic

after this brought a whole cargo of Testa¬

ments, millions of copies, which were all

sold in advance before the ship arrived.

The old story, forever new, has an im¬

mortal charm for men of all times and

climes, and proves its divine origin by

being everywhere the power of God unto

salvation; and it is read, studied, under¬

stood, and appreciated more and more

by increasing multitudes, because it brings

God to men and men to God, by showing

us Him in whom we see what God is and

what man is to be.

And because He is in the world, the

living center and source of its highest

life, the world is growing better. This is

the best time this world has ever seen.

In health and wealth, in knowledge and


virtue, in religion and philanthropy we

are the most favored generation upon

which the sun has shined. We are better

fed, better clad, better taught, better

governed, with better laws, better man¬

ners, and better religion than our ancestors

had.

Jesus Christ has not lived and suffered

and died and risen in vain. “He shall not

fail nor be discouraged till He have set

judgment in the earth and the isles shall

wait for His law.” Standing in the shadow

of His cross, He said, “And I, if I be lifted

up from the earth, will draw all men unto

Me.” He has been lifted up and is draw¬

ing all men to Himself. From North and

South, East and West, the nations are

turning to Him as the great Deliverer.

The day spring from on high is visiting

all nations. “The light of the knowledge

of the glory of God in the face of Jesus

Christ” is banishing the world’s long night

of sin and sorrow. All the mountains are

beautiful with the feet of them that pub¬

lish salvation, and from the Church tri¬

umphant there comes to the Church mili¬

tant this great word of the great apostle:

Worse or Better? 39

“Let this mind be in you which was

also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the

form of God, thought it not robbery to

be equal with God; but made Himself

of no reputation and took upon Him the

form of a servant; and, being found in

fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and

became obedient unto death, even the

death of the cross. Wherefore, God also

hath highly exalted Him and given Him

a name which is above every name; that

at the name of Jesus every knee should

bow of things in heaven and things in

earth and things under the earth; and

that every tongue should confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God

the Father.”

\

SEP I ,9,‘

Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Dec. 2004

PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION

111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066

(724) 779-2111

One copy del. to Cat. Div.

SEP I 1911

Documents

Is the world growing worse or better? - Internet Archive...Deceit, dishonesty, hypocrisy, white lies and black lies, slander, vanity, os- 5 6 Is the World Growing tentation, arrogance,